3.03.2007

Wise County's Poolville lost on Friday night to Eula, 52-48, to end its playoff run. Trivia: Eula is coached by former Decatur resident Josh Fostel (who is the son of Wise County District Judge John Fostel).

And don't accuse me of sucking up to the judge - which I might be doing.

And I nominate her for the Hottest 41 Year Old Who Jazzes Me. (I kept being drawn back to this picture. Kinda like the Siren on the island that caused ships to sail towards her and crash - at least that story is in the back of my mind somewhere. )

In this undated image made from video, released by the Islamic State of Iraq's (ISI) al-Furqan Media and distributed Saturday, March 3, 2007 by IntelCenter, 18 blindfolded members of the Iraqi Security Forces are shot from behind by an unidentified gunman at an undisclosed location. In a statement posted on an Islamic militant Web site on Saturday, the al-Qaida-affilated Islamic State of Iraq claimed it abducted and killed two groups of Iraqi government forces in retaliation for the alleged rape of a Sunni woman by members of the Shiite-dominated police. This image was provided via the IntelCenter, which is a private contractor working for intelligence agencies. (AP Photo/Intel Center, HO)
Man, normally horrific images like what is described above don't appear on Yahoo, but they do today. Heck, I don't feel comfortable reposting them here. But, for those so inclined, they generally appear in Yahoo's Most Emailed Photos and as a sidebar to Yahoo's Most Popular Stories.

In Colleyville. Pretty cool. Pretty hi-tone.
Edit: That place is great. Has a nice restaurant on one side and a very fancy bar area on the other which has a menu that is outstanding. And it's one of those movie/restaurant concepts where you can have your meal while you eat. Comfy seats. And there's an IMAX in there. (Website)

As I was getting home from work last night, I saw that we had some mailbox carnage in the neighborhood. They even had to call a tow truck for the vehicle that had a tad bit of trouble staying on the roadway. Yep, through the two mailboxes, across the driveway, and into the front yard. Good times.

As I kid, I can remember the newspaper guy coming by the house and throwing out a paper in the morning and then come by again around six o'clock and throwing out an evening edition of the paper. How crazy is that. I'm pretty sure it was the Star Telegram.

--"The Number 23" with Jim Carrey wasn't nearly as bad as all the critics said it would be. There are, however, a few huge holes in the plot.

--"The Hitcher" - Yep, I actually went and saw this about a month or so ago. Irony: The movie will show you a body literally ripped in half but will deny you a view of a female breast in a shower scene. What is this world coming to?

This happened yesterday which got the boys at The Ticket talking. Gary Gogill interviewed Ultimate Fighting champion Chuck Liddell who was in town to promote the new movie "300" even though he isn't in "300". But the funny part is that the guy is either wasted or sleepy or both. About a minute into the interview he actually falls asleep.

"Worst thing about the Oscars," comedian Jerry Seinfeld joked during a 2002 show at, of all places, UT-Arlington's Texas Hall, "is that they never tell you the final scores. We're Americans. We not only want to know who won, but by how much. Was it a blowout? Overtime? Tell us! All we really get is a bunch of people all dressed alike patting each other on the back going, 'Good job of pretending to be someone else.'"

Credit Card Company issues a credit card to what some of you would refer to as a Mexican [hereinafer referred to as "The Mexican"]. The Mexican runs up a bill and doesn't pay the Credit Card Company. The Credit Card Company sues. Lawyer for Credit Card Company sends The Mexican something called Requests for Admissions which asks him to admit or deny that he owes the money. The Mexican ignores it. The law says that Requests for Admissions that are ignored are "deemed admitted" which means The Mexican just admitted he owed the bill. Lawyer for Credit Card Company files a Motion for Summary Judgment which says, in essense, "Since The Mexican has admitted he owes us the money, there's no need for a trial, and we want a judgment for the money The Mexican owes us."

Pretty simple, huh?

Uh, oh. On January 1st a new judge who happens to be African American and female and a Democrat took over the court. (As did every other Democrat in Dallas County judicial races.)

Dina Sansing from US Weekly was being interviewed by goofy Glenn Beck of CNN. They were taling about the alleged tawdry pictures of American Idol's Antonella Barba. Then this gold occurred:
BECK: Dina, let me tell you something. I don`t think you have to be famous. I think you just work in the average environment in America now, somebody would get a picture of you, and then it would be posted all around, and it will happen in your office.
SANSING: Possibly.
BECK: You don`t think so?
SANSING: Well, it depends. You know, it depends…
BECK: Dina, I`ve got some time and a camera. Why don`t you stop by? [Insert biggest awkward pause in the history of ever] No? OK.

For 4 News just told me (by way of the television) that an arrest warrant has been issued for Rockwall County D.A. Ray Sumrow for "Abuse of Official Capacity." The Texas Rangers claim that he deposited $67,980 in his personal account although he later paid it back. An "FBI Analyst" says that Sumrow used those funds to "support his living expenses for a year."

Hey, hoss, just get a loan next time. Or better yet, don't buy more crap than you can afford.

Four months ago, Louis “Bill” Conradt Jr., 56, the chief felony assistant district attorney for Rockwall County killed himself after the "To Catch A Predator" crew showed up at his doorstep.

I'm watching a DWI case in the county court at law in Decatur right now. Abe Factor of Fort Worth was the defense lawyer. He's pretty good. (In my first case as a prosecutor in 1989, Abe was the defense lawyer. He actually owns an Intoxilyzer 5000 machine.)

Deputy Charles Reynolds is testifying now. Doing a good job. The defendant told him he was coming home from the Railhead in Fort Worth and had had three beers.

2.27.2007

Tomorrow's Messenger will have a Page Two story about Wise County runners who finished the the Cowtown Marathon and Half Marathon. Despite my blazing finish of 2:03.04 in the Half Marathon (which still has people talking), my name will be shockingly omitted from the story.

I haven't been so humiliated since I got stuck in a Porto-Potty at the Wise County Youth Fair as a middle schooler.

One of the nerdiest things I've done in a while: Experimenting with the Twitter box on the side that can be updated by the web, chat, or phone. I'll abandon it soon. It's kind of a cool idea but probably not very useful.
Edit: Considering the fact that it doesn't load 75% of the time, I'm not sure what it's worth.

There were rumors today of the possible demise of a couple of large Dallas law firms, and one of them gave me first lawyer job ever: Vial, Hamilton in Dallas.

Those days were mind numbing. I worked in the old Republic Bank building in downtown Dallas and, get this, I valet parked my car in the underground parking garage every day. Everyone wore expensive suits, ties, and shoes. "High tone" doesn't begin to describe it.

But I learned the concept of the billable hour. Every minute I worked on a client's file had to be documented so that the information could later be used to create a bill. We billed by the 1/10th of an hour - so if I began a research project I would jot down on a work slip the time I started and what time I stopped. Notes like "Start: 8:43 End: 9:11" were common. Every minute of every day had to be accounted for because we had a quota of how many hours we were required to bill every month. (And once a month a newsletter would be circulated around the office revealing how many hours each associate had billed the month before.) I have my faults, but I was extremely honest - I wouldn't cheat on my time slips. If a buddy called me in the middle of the day and we chatted for 18 minutes, I knew that I had lost .3 hours of billable time and that I would work 18 minutes later that day.

I wouldn't do that again for all the tea in China.

And since it doesn't matter much any more, here's a shocker: The year was 1986, and I was a 24 year old kid out of law school. My starting salary: $43,000 a year. That was obscene. (My job a couple of years earlier in undergraduate school was as a bank teller at around $5.00 an hour.) And if my salary back then offends you, you won't be happy to learn that first year associates in the big firms in Dallas are now getting $155,000 a year. And their lives are miserable.

These were some highlights of my first year (and my bosses really loved me):

- Bob Vial (the name partner) throwing a 13 page draft of an insurance coverage opinion I had written into the air as he dropped multiple GD bombs on me. I still remember the pages floating in the air and slowly landing all over the office.- Bob Vial's secretary telling me to "sit your little ass in that chair and don't move" until Mr. Vial was ready to see me.- Leigh Bartlett, my second boss, correcting a draft letter I had written in red pen with the notation "I don't intend to spend my Saturday afternoon correcting every sentence of your work."- Mr. Vial and I driving back from a deposition together in his Mercedes when he decided to stop for lunch at Denny's. Freakin' Denny's!!!!! I still remember him telling the waitress that he wanted his french fries "extra, extra crispy."

"Decatur, TX (WBAP) - A man suspected of robbing a Springtown bank Tuesday morning was arrested at a Wise County convenience store. Deputies noticed 18-year-old Robert C Joplin, and the car he was driving, matched the description of the man who held up a Bank One in Springtown. Deputies say Joplin was arrested without a struggle and some of the bank's money was found."
That's all I know.

What a pain. That paragraph in last week's Attorney General Opinion by Greg Abbott is causing major headaches around Texas. No longer can a social security number be released in a document that is otherwise public. I'm not sure how Wise County is handling it - the county went to document imaging about 5 years ago and you can walk into the clerk's office and look up public records - many of which have social security numbers on them. So do they now go back and redact the SSN and rescan them?